searching for the same light
by Caitlyn Rose
Summary: Rayna/ Deacon. Circa 2002. Alternate Universe.
1. Chapter 1

The funny thing is, she really never does this anymore. Once upon a time, sure; checking out the music scene in each new place, finding some little hideaway to creep into once their own show was over...that was all part of the fun. A whiskey or five mightn't have been entirely unheard of.

These days, the truth is that Rayna's off stage by 10:30 and, more often than not, safely tucked up in bed by midnight.

For whatever reason, though, that isn't a truth she feels especially inclined to share with Country Weekly, and so here she is; four band members, five roadies and one journalist in tow, paying for another round of drinks and acting for all the world like this is exactly how she spends the average Thursday night.

"So seems like you're a pretty hard ass boss, huh?" Reporter Kevin jokes, having to shout a little over the sound of the three-piece rockabilly band on stage. And, while he might be unobtrusive enough company, while he might make these sort-of-almost-amusing comments and seem broadly inclined to write a nice soft piece on her, to Rayna this man is Reporter Kevin. He will never, ever just be Kevin.

"Oh yeah," she plays along, "I'm a real slave driver." She starts to distribute beers from a precariously balanced tray as the guys gather round, reaching in to grab their own drinks, laughing and talking over each other animatedly. Everyone, at this point, is starting to get a little bit sloppy. "As you can see, these guys respect me deeply."

Journalist Kevin laughs, because it doesn't take much, and Rayna turns, weaving her way back to the bar to return the tray.

Honestly, she's tired, and more sober than she's letting on, and not even fully sure where they _are_ beyond the basic knowledge that it's somewhere in downtown Austin. Still, though, she finds that it _is_ kind of nice to be out. This latest stop on their bar crawl is warm and buzzing, with that maple honey glow common to bars the world over. There's a rotation of local acts taking their turn on a small stage, and the audience is appreciative and unpretentious; a little rowdy, but in the best way.

Austin people, Rayna thinks, are _cool_. And they know good music. There isn't a whole lot else she really needs in a city.

She's working her way back to her group, squeezing past people and absently watching the changeover kerfuffle on stage when she sees him.

And of course, she sees him all the time, in faces in the audience, in silhouettes on the street. So, that first thump in her chest isn't really anything very new at this point. The sudden, sharp in her stomach a half a second later, though - that's kind of a kicker.

Because it hasn't been Deacon Claybourne for more than three years. But it's him now.


	2. Chapter 2

She doesn't know what to do. That's all she can think.

If this were a movie, everything and everyone that isn't him would fade into a soft focus blur. The sound would quiet and mutate until all that remained was the thump of her own heartbeat, getting louder, louder. There might be the prospect of a happy ending at some point.

This isn't a movie, though, and there's no script. Rayna doesn't know what to do.

She is warm. Somehow, she's vaguely conscious of that. Of being unbearably, stupefyingly, warm.

It's loud, and she's warm, and he's here. _There._

He's _right there_.

He taps the microphone gently with his knuckle to check the sound, and in an instant, Rayna's brain seems to snap back into sharp focus. That reporter. Suddenly, that's all she can think. She has got to get Reporter Kevin out of this place before Deacon speaks into that mic and draws every eye in the place to him.

In all the times she's imagined this moment (and she has imagined it a million different ways, in a million locations, from The Bluebird Cafe to the Davidson County Morgue) memorialization in the pages of some magazine has not been a feature. A front page scoop sure the hell hasn't.

She rushes back to the guys, smile plastered on her face, making excited proclamations about some place down the street they just _have_ to go to. _Now_. Yes, _now_. _Come on, come on, come on, it'll be fun, take your drinks with you, who cares?_ _Let's GO_.

They're all a little nonplussed. But she presents a pretty good approximation of the type of spontaneity that tends to be attractive to the mildly drunk. And, the thing about being the leader is that they're used to following her.

Rayna chivvys everyone out ahead of her, unable to help one last look behind her at the stage, as if to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. They weren't. Deacon - real, live, Deacon - is picking out the first delicate strains of something beautiful on his guitar, and the crowd has started to quiet down, as if by magic. Evidently he can still command an audience with what seems like no effort whatsoever.

He leans in to the microphone, opens his mouth to sing, and somehow in that second - by some force Rayna has never been able to explain - his eyes land on her.

He looks right at her.

He looks at her, and she looks him, and Rayna just about manages a mute raise of her hand before she gets the hell out of there.

# # # # #

Deacon blinks, swallows, swallows again.

He lets out a breath, unaware of it until he hears it amplified through the mic. There's an urge to run that he can honestly say he's never felt while standing on a stage before. To run _after her_. But what would be the point? He knows what he needs to about Mrs Teddy Conrad.

Just for the purposes of helping him endure the next three minutes, though; just while he boxes this or buries it or otherwise finds some way to save the pain for later, it would be nice, Deacon thinks, if he had even one single song that wasn't, in some form or fashion, about Rayna Jaymes.


	3. Chapter 3

2:45am, and Rayna's back. Alone.

The lights are on now, and the ground feels sticky, and vast amounts of empty glasses clutter every surface. The vibe, in short, is distinctly less magical.

She doesn't really care about any of that, though.

She scans the place, and hardly knows whether to feel relief or dread when she finds that he's one of the few still here. He's snapping his guitar case closed, saying his goodbyes to whoever's disassembling the equipment on stage, and she just watches for a second as he shrugs on his jacket, swings the guitar case over his shoulder.

She can't help but notice that he looks good. As in _good_. He'd always been pretty fit - the kind of fit that came with being a guy in his twenties who'd done his share of manual labor, hauled his share of amps. Now, it's obvious to her that he's the kind of fit that comes from going to the gym, lifting weights, actually _trying_ in some way.

So, _that's new_ , she thinks.

So distracted is she that, despite all the planning and hypothetsizing with which she'd tortured herself on the whole way back over here, she's somehow caught unawares when he turns. He sees her - stops like a bullet's just hit him - and she feels scarcely any less surprised herself.

"Hi," she blurts out.

Deacon feels his mouth go dry.

"Hi Rayna," he manages, quietly, and her name feels strange - heavy somehow - on his tongue. He hasn't said it out loud in so long. Not to anyone.

"I'm sorry about before," she says, rushing to explain herself. "There was a guy from a magazine here. Doing one of those "day in the life" things or whatever. And, I don't know, I guess I just didn't want him to see you and - I mean, not that he necessarily even would have put it in the article but I think he probably would have and I didn't want-"

She's babbling, she can hear it herself, but she can't stop until:

"Hey," he interrupts, so gently, "I get it."

And there it is again, Rayna thinks, after all this time; that sense that Deacon Claybourne is just fundamentally on her side.

She takes a breath, sighs quietly. How has that managed to survive all this?

"It's good to see you," she offers then simply.

He nods, his eyes soft. "It's good to see you too, Rayna." Because it is. Of course, he's clocked the rings glimmering on her left hand; glutton for punishment that he is, he couldn't resist sneaking a quick glance. But even still, Deacon finds that it is so, _so_ good to see her. Just to be near her. To know at least that when she left earlier, it wasn't because she couldn't bear - or couldn't be bothered - even to speak to him.

He looks around the bar. "Reckon Tom's just about shutting up shop here."

"Right," she says lightly, her eyes darting around the place as well, taking in the last few stragglers, and bartenders busily wiping tables. She suddenly feels a little foolish for having come all the way back here at this hour.

"I guess I wasn't really thinking I ju-"

"Well if you wanted we could-"

They start at the same time, words bumping into each other clumsily until they both jolt to a stop, smiling awkwardly.

After you. No, after _you_.

Deacon shrugs humbly.

"I mean, my place is pretty close. Like, ten minutes or so. Just…if you want."

"- To talk," he clarifies hurriedly, a half a second later. "If you want to talk."

And of course, he's her ex-boyfriend - a term that, in fact, has always seemed to Rayna almost laughably flimsy, but she supposes is accurate. It's almost 3am in the morning. Teddy would have a conniption if he knew.

The easy thing, Rayna thinks later - the understandable, believable, slightly-less-unflattering thing - would be to convince herself that these considerations just did not occur to her, in the moment.

The truth is that, in the moment, they _do_ occur to her. She simply finds that she doesn't care a bit about any of them.


	4. Chapter 4

She perches awkwardly on his couch, feeling entirely out of place. He's rustling about in the kitchen, and she can hear crockery clinking on a countertop as the kettle whistles.

He'd offered her some _tea_. Rayna can't recall a single prior occasion on which she'd ever known Deacon to drink tea, much less make her a cup, but it's been a while. How is she to know how his tastes might have changed? Anyway, he'd seemed to want to offer her something, seemed - as much as anything else - to want a task to perform, and she'd figured the least she could do was cooperate.

Being in his truck had been strange. It had been so old even when she'd last seen it that she could hardly believe it was still going. But it was, apparently, and it still smelled exactly the same. That latch was still broken on the glove box. Quite without warning, Rayna had found herself sitting there, wandering if even now, he ever turned the keys in the ignition and thought suddenly of the screaming matches they'd had in these two front seats, or the clothes they'd pulled off each other in the back, or the summer days when they'd driven for hours with the windows down and the radio up.

She'd shaken her head a little, then, as if to snap herself out of it. He probably didn't.

Anyway. Rayna finds that it is stranger still to be in his apartment, surrounded by all these things she _doesn't_ recoginize, searching the room for something that hides a memory.

There's nothing, though. The whole place is a blank canvass to her. And yet it's his _home_. This is where Deacon _lives_. It's so stupid, but she can't seem to get her head around that concept.

He comes in from the kitchen with two mugs in hand, sets one down in front of her.

"Thank you," she says, raising the mug to her lips and taking a long sip.

The tea was a great idea, she sees that immediately. It's nice to have a prop. "So. How are you?"

It's a little tentative, a little awkward, but there doesn't seem any other place to start.

"I'm good." He raises an eyebrow. "Sober."

It's not a surprise. She's seen him drunk and seen him sober, and she sure knows the difference between the two.

"How long?"

"Since the last day I saw you."

Rayna can't help the sudden, joyful little exhale that escapes her, the widening of her eyes in wonder.

"Deacon. I… I don't even know what to say." She bites her lip, just looks at him for a second. "That's amazing. I'm so proud of you. Can I say that?" she adds uncertainly, not sure where they stand now, not sure of much of anything at all. "I'm _so_ proud of you."

He gives her a small smile. "You can say it."

She smiles too, and as the silence settles between them, she lets her gaze travel around the room. "This is a real nice place," she says, and it is. It's small, but homey and clean, and frankly a major step up from any of the various places Deacon had lived before he'd moved in with her and she'd assumed sole responsibility for decor.

"Thanks. I can't take credit or nothin', it was furnished when i rented it."

"Ah, ok," she nods. "You don't have a TV," she observes then, for no reason in particular. Just, something safe to say.

"No."

"So what do you do, without a screen to look at?" She asks loftily, probably only half joking.

Deacon shrugs. "Guess I read a lot." He nods towards the chair in the corner that, true enough, Rayna sees now, has a messy newspaper on its arm and rickety little stack of paperbacks piled beside it. "...Listen to music. Write songs. I been teachin' myself the piano a little bit."

"Yeah?"

He nods. "I got a little keyboard set up in my room."

"Well, damn," she drawls, her lips curving upwards in a half-smile. "That was the only instrument where I maybe had you beat."

He chuckles lightly. "You still do," he says, and it's true. Rayna was more adept on that front than anyone realized. "I never understood why you didn't play on stage."

She shrugs. "Just...you know. Confidence, I guess."

It's not an admission she'd necessarily make to everybody, Deacon knows that, and just the little chink of vulnerability in her voice - the barest hint of their old intimacy - is suddenly so achingly familiar he can hardly stand it.

Neither of them can seem to find anything to say, and the silence between them reverberates with something they couldn't describe if they wanted to. They drink their tea.

"So." Rayna takes the leap a minute later. "Where you been, Deacon?"

She tries to toss it out there lightly, like she hasn't asked herself the same question every morning and night for years, like it isn't the most _fundamental fucking thing_ a person might care to inform another person.

"Dublin mostly," he says. "Galway a little bit..all over."

"All over _Ireland_?" She asks, mouth agape; she could have been knocked down with a feather.

He nods.

"But…you're not Irish," she says dumbly. And even though she knows it's true, she still feels somehow like she needs the confirmation that comes with the shake of his head.

"So…I mean...why there?"

He shrugs. "You know. I was fresh outta rehab. Figured, _hey. Why not make sobriety about as difficult for myself as it could possibly be?_ "

He's smirking, and she can't help but laugh a little too. He still has that dry delivery that just creeps up on her. There's a tinge of sadness in her reply, though, that even she can hear. "Sounds like you alright," she murmurs.

"Nah," - he's serious now - "I had a buddy got me a gig over there with this guy Christy Moore, you heard of him?"

Rayna shakes her head.

"He's real talented. Does folk kinda stuff, you know? Nice guy too. Anyway I did some session recording for him, then went out on the road. Not real huge crowds, you know, two thousand people or something like that."

Rayna says nothing. That's bigger than some of the venues she's managing to fill.

"Ain't nothing in Ireland that's big, apart from the sky," Deacon continues. "And the fields. You'd like it Ray, you really would."

She offers a faint smile. "I'd like to go some day."

 _I'll take you_ , he wants to say. It's on the tip of his tongue. _We'll drive around the whole coast, from Donegal to Dingle. And you'll meet Christy and Sharon and Sean and everyone, and they'll adore you._

Of course, he says none of that. He's never especially considered himself one for convention, but even he knows it's not the sort of offer you make to a married woman.

"You didn't want to stay, though?" she's asking him now, and he snaps out of the fantasy once and for all.

"Visa expired," he explains. "So, back to the ole U.S. of A. I went to Nachez first, saw Scarlett and Bev and picked up my car, and then I drove to Austin. Been here comin' up on a year now."

A year.

He's been back for a _year._

It hits Rayna like a punch to the stomach.

"...I'm just here for two days," she manages, her voice brittle. "I had a show at the Paramount tonight."

"Yeah I, uh…" Deacon's eyes shift a little self-consciously. "I saw the ad in the paper. That's a real nice venue."

This time, Rayna can't restrain the faint, incredulous little exhale that escapes her. The hits just keep on coming

"Yeah, it _was_ \- it was nice," she says, sounding a little dazed. Between the rising, burning anger (he's been fucking _swanning_ around fucking _Europe_ ) and the sinking, crushing pain (he's so entirely indifferent to her; he doesn't even care enough to try and hide it) it's as though she's not sure what to feel first, feel most. Either way, it's clear to her that this conversation isn't one she can continue much longer. She might be about to cry, and she'd really just rather be alone to do it.

She tries to collect herself for a moment, then reaches for the purse at her feet. "Deacon, y'know, I think I'm just gonna... go."

"No!" he protests, sudden urgency in his tone. "Please! Just...please, I just want to look at you."

He hadn't planned to say it - _obviously_ he hadn't planned to say such a thing - and he's immediately mortified. There's no time even for damage control, though, because Rayna's expression contorts into one of utter scorn.

" _What_?" she questions sharply, as though something has snapped inside of her. "Deacon. You _knew_ I was in Austin tonight and you didn't come to my show. You've known where I was this whole time. I mean, _Jesus_ ," she exclaims. "Did you even miss me at _all_?"

It sounds so undeniably pathetic but, at this point, she finds that she honestly doesn't care - just looks at him imploringly, watches as he takes his turn at incredulity.

And truly, Deacon - for his part - can barely even formulate a response, it seems to him so ludicrous a question. "Ray," he manages, aghast. "I... _of course_ I did."

" _Really_ ," she asks, but there's no lilt to her voice, it's not a question at all. "'Cause I haven't seen or heard from you in over three years. If that's you missing me…well. I don't know. I can't _imagine_ what you _not giving a shit_ would look like."

She spits the words out meanly, and they're just - Deacon shakes his head - they're just so staggeringly far off the truth that he can't help but let them get his back up.

"That's not fair," he says flatly.

"It's not?" she fires back. "Deacon, I didn't know -" she halts because, suddenly, horrifyingly, she hears her own voice break, feels the tears spring to her eyes. "I didn't know where you were…I didn't know if you were alive or dead!"

Saying the last bit out loud gets the better of her. Her face crumples, and Deacon feels the anger drain from him as she shields her face in embarrassment, trying not to let the tears fall. He never could bear to see her upset.

"I…. _what_?" He's helpless, confused. "I came back to Nashville right after Cedar Lodge, saw Coleman. Told him I was leaving. I figured he'd tell you. Did he not do that?"

"No, he did," Rayna corrects. She's taken her hands away from her face now and seems intent on ignoring her little display of emotion entirely. "But I mean, what use was that, really?" She sounds very tired all of a sudden. " _Where were you going_? He didn't know. _How long were you going to be gone for_? He didn't know. That was _one day_ , Deacon. One day where somebody saw you, where somebody knew you were okay. There's been a lot of days since then."

And when it came to staying on the straight and narrow - she doesn't bother adding - he hadn't traditionally been able to manage too many days in a row.

"I…Ray." Deacon tries again. "…I don't know. I'm sorry. I guess I just…" - he shrugs - "didn't think that you would care."

A beat.

"You _didn't think I would care_ ," she repeats then, slowly, quietly.

No challenge, no correction. For Deacon, it's worse that that; it's the unmistakable sense that she's profoundly hurt - _insulted -_ by what he's just said to her.

"No, that's...I didn't mean - " he falters. That had come out a little harsher, a little more accusatory, than he'd really intended it. "I just mean... I didn't reckon you'd want to hear from me. I thought you were done with me. Cole _told me_ you'd gotten engaged to that guy Teddy."

It seems to land between them like grenade, and truthfully, Deacon does get a tiny sliver of satisfaction in tossing it out there, in feeling like he's gotten to explain himself at last. Did she think he didn't know? Was she _ever_ planning to mention it?

To see that she's in pain - to know that he's the cause of it - is as heart-sickening to him as it ever was. But there does seem to him to be a pretty serious flaw in her abandoned woman bit, and he's never really been in the business of letting her off the hook, any more than she has him.

Rayna takes a deep breath in. She actually feels a little winded.

She _had_ already known that Coleman had told Deacon, in fact. Coleman himself admitted that to her, when he let her know that Deacon had come and gone. But still, it's unexpectedly awful to be reminded like this. Just to find herself now living in a world where Deacon Claybourne is standing in front of her, Teddy Conrad's name coming out of his mouth, feels like a brutal collision of some sort.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, because she's not sure what else to say. "I...it was a really complicated time. There was a lot of stuff happening and...I wanted to tell you myself. Well I didn't _want_ to," she amends, "but you know what I mean. But anyway. Then you were gone."

"What did you expect me to do, Rayna? Did you want me to stick around for the wedding? Because honestly, I think that might have killed me."

She doesn't have to ask to know that he means literally.

"Look, you moved on," Deacon continues. "And that's fine, you were right to. God knows you deserved better than me. But...man," he shakes his head a little, almost as though he's talking to himself. " _Engaged_. In less than _six months_. That's, like, a "fuck you" kinda movin' on right there. I got the message."

She swallows. "It really wasn't like that," she protests. But, she can see his point.

"I ain't blaming you," he says, more gently now. "You put your life on hold for me long enough, I get that."

His expression is so sincere - those blue eyes she thought she'd never see again - and Rayna is overwhelmed suddenly by all the things she can't figure out how to tell him.

"Deacon, I…ugh." She puts her head in her hands, feeling utterly at a loss. He's getting it all wrong, and she's probably handled this _whole_ _thing_ all wrong, and she doesn't know how to make it right. "God. This is all such a mess."

She's exhausted. Her opening number at the Paramount - hell, even finally ditching Journalist Kevin at the hotel - seems like a lifetime ago. She takes her hands from her face, glancing down at her watch. "Jeez. It's, like, 4AM."

"Yeah, well. Guess you and I have seen a lot of 4AMs together, huh?" he says softly.

She smiles sadly in response. "We sure have." Then: "I think I really better get back. Will you call me a cab?"

And there's a part of Deacon that would like to refuse, protest, put up some kind of fight. But the truth is he hadn't imagined any other ending than this, not really. Defeat settles like sinking cement in his stomach.

"Sure," he says.

 _That's that_.

She's gazing absently at his carpet, and he moves to get up and go to the phone when she reaches out, puts just the tips of her fingertips on his knee.

He freezes, looks down at her hand. They both do.

"Can I see you tomorrow?" she asks quietly.

"Yeah," he says, taken aback. "If you want to."

She gives the tiniest nod, but it's decisive as can be.

"I want to."

# # # #

She walks out in front of him and he reaches around her, above her right shoulder, to get the front door.

There's a mirror on the wall to her left, and Rayna takes a cursory glance at her reflection before she leaves - the force of habit. Something attracts her attention, though, and her eyes flicker back. In the bottom corner of the mirror, she notices now, a photograph has been worked underneath the frame.

It must have been snapped in the early morning, she'd guess, from the light and her bare face, from the blurry outlines of their old tour bus furniture that she can just about make out in the background. Deacon's hand cups her check, and she's leaning into it, smiling. His forearm, captured by the camera too, juts out into the foreground, obscuring most everything else.

That she has no specific memory of the moment doesn't surprise her all that much. There had just been _so many_ happy, inconsequential moments like that between the two of them. And, for a six week period in 1995, right after they'd been signed and Deacon had splashed out on a Nikon, those moments had been committed to celluloid with almost aggravating frequency.

 _Babe,_ she'd half-groan, half-laugh. _Will you get that friggin' thing away from me. Seriously. You said you wanted to take pictures of stuff we saw out on the road._

And he _had_ said that, true enough, but still he photographed her more than any monument, more than mountains or rivers or sunsets combined. _I can't help it if you're the most beautiful thing I ever see on the road._

It feels like a private thing - the fact that he has kept this picture, the fact that he put it here - and Rayna would pretend she hadn't noticed if she could, but her glance has lingered just a few seconds too long. She's seen it, and he's seen that she's seen it, and their eyes meet in the mirror.

"For the record, Rayna," he says gruffly, "I done pretty much nothin' else _except_ for miss you."


End file.
